Published in No one would publish it-see why
September 2008

How safe is your money
What every online player should know


Being the CPA for successful poker players, I have found that there are a lot of guys that have substantial amounts of money sitting on the on-line poker sites. I certainly don’t have this problem, although it would be nice. Is this a problem? It could be. Having a large balance, meaning over $10,000, on a site is not a good idea. Why is that, you ask? Well, let’s first look at the financial aspect.

It’s safe to say that most of the sites do not pay interest to you on your money. If you took $10,000 down to a bank and opened an account, you would certainly expect them to pay you something for this, right? These sites have it made. If you add up all the money that players have on the site, I am sure that it adds up to millions and millions of dollars. I can assure you of this, THEY are earning interest on your money. So, let’s think about it – not only are they profiting from the money you have parked it on their site, they also are taking a rake as well. If you have, say $80,000 with them (and I found out this is the case pretty often), that is really crazy.

Now lets look at the most important reason not to keep money on these sites. One word – Neteller. Yes, you remember good ‘ole Neteller. Many of my clients had huge balances in their accounts. I had enough in my account to buy a large bag of Peanut M&M’s. I wasn’t worried about myself but I did have a lot of upset guys calling my office asking what they could do. Not a damn thing. Nothing. Sit, wait, pray. That’s about all any of us could do and thankfully, the money came back to everyone in about 9 months.

Now, I know many of you are saying that the big sites are safe but as we know very well in poker, nothing is a sure thing. You could double click on your favorite site tomorrow and the “cannot find server” message could pop up. Blog all you want but what can you do short of flying to some island and dealing with a foreign government. Even then, by the time you arrive, the servers and that lovely customer service could be gone, along with your virtual money.

None of us can really be 100% assured that our money is safe and will be there when we want it. In fact, some of the sites won’t even give it to you when you want it. Some will only allow you to take a little at a time every 4 or 5 days. How long would it take you to get $80k doing it that way?! A lot of the sites used to wire the money to you right away and I’ve learned that option is going away fast. If a site has your money and will not give it to you, and I mean all of it when you want it, you don’t want to “do business with them”.

The money online is your money, right? It truly was hard-earned. I know if I went down to my bank and wanted to take out a large amount of my money, or all of it, I would go postal if they restricted me from doing that. So would you so why should your online money be any different?

So, a word to the wise. If you have a lot of money, take it out and put it into your account where you are assured it is safe and you can use it anytime you want.

Now, go out and make it count.

Ann-Margaret Johnston is a practicing CPA in Cumming, Georgia. She is the author of the book titled “How To Turn Your Poker Playing Into A Business”. Her website is www.pokerdeductions.com where you can find answers to commonly asked poker tax questions. You can also email her at annm@johnstoncpas.com, with the word poker in the subject line.






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